iCloud's 'Find My iPhone' Rocks! Me -1 / Criminals - 0

Find My iPhone has to be the best "value added" feature in iOS. For my MacBook Pro I would say it is MagSafe. Anyways, never really thought anything of Find My iPhone until today.

Elderly mother left her phone in car last night. Came out this morning to find car broken into and only thing missing was her 2 month only iPhone 4S. She called me up to see if there was any way to wipe the phone because of some highly confidential work emails. I told her that I had set her up with an iCloud account when she got the phone and could do that and more from iCloud.com.

She wanted nothing of it so I went to her house. Showed her exactly where the phone was which she then related to the police. I really thought the police would just blow off a cell phone as she lives in a major city. They sent a car to the location and called us where I was then able to make the phone emit its alert tone.

The police were able to track the phone to the crook and arrested them and recover the phone.

Comments

Get your iPhone back from even the sketchiest of dudes with this amazing feature!

This thing is AMAZING! I lost my phone partying in a park last night and didn't even know it till this morning... I remembered that they asked me if I wanted to install Find My iPhone on my phone when I got it a few months ago. But I didn't know if I'd done anything to my MacBook Pro that I had bought a year or so ago, so I didn't think I had hope. First I retraced my bike ride back to the park and home. No phone. Then I thought what the hell I NEED THAT PHONE! so I searched on the Net till I found links to Apple Store and other things describing how to go to iCloud and log in and even then I had no idea if it would link up or not. But when I got to iCloud and started clicking on the things that seemed fairly easy to do, even in a tizzy, I had a screen where I saw Find my Mac and Find my iPhone in clickable squares and I saw a Google Map with a blue dot showing that my phone was in a vacant lot about 13 miles away. I was able to remotely lock it down AND send messages. I sent one that said I NEED THAT PHONE AND AM ON THE WAY and set it to make sounds as well. What the hell, gotta try everything, right. Being freshly back in Colorado from escaping Japan, in grad school with no cash for a car, I jotted the location on a Post-It and put my Mac in my pack and jumped on my mountain bike and legged it out there. I found a landscaping business and a big lot with trucks and cars in it and fences and guard dogs and whatnot not conducive to a proper search -- unassisted anyway. I found a cop substation around the corner and the officer was real helpful, went in there for me and I stood out by his car and he told them "man wants his phone back and that's it and here's my card." He told me I had to go back to Denver and file a report there near my place and so I rode back, not finding Wi-Fi on the way to check again. I got back home and hooked up and saw it had moved! to near downtown, so I sent HEY I NEED THAT PHONE PLEASE WAIT I AM ON MY WAY BY BICYCLE and then took off madly a few miles to the NW and ducked into a Wi-Fi spot and discovered it had MOVED AGAIN but this time was only a few blocks away! so I jumped on my bike and rode like a madman and suddenly saw EVERYONE ON THE STREET HAD A FRICKIN' iPHONE in their hand! and there was a homeless dude passed out on the grass and a crazy punker going by with a phone just like mine but he was talking into it and I have never seen how the lock works or what happens or if anyone can over-ride those things or -- anyway there were bus-stop benches and trash cans and apartment building dumpsters all around and I realized how you could be close but still come up empty and more agitated than ever...so I flew back to the coffee shop, no purchase this time, stood under the awning to the side and wired in and AHA! it was moving, visibly, across a big park I knew well -- THE ONE I HAD LOST IT IN! So I sent a message, Please I need that phone I am coming by bike to get it I will give you $20, all I have in my pocket, thank you. And I rode to the very bench where we had partied heartily till past 11 the night before...and there I found a very big and well-tattooed dude with skin-head and a skinny punky maybe druggie-looking dude and I rode up and calmly said, Hey have you guys seen an iPhone? and the big one grins and it's in his lap and the other one cackles and says He's wondering about that 20 dollars to help him out...and I said, It's right here, man, lemme go I'm late for school! and the exchange was made and I was in time for school and GOOD GOD I SURE DO LOVE THESE APPLES and I PREACH AND DEMONSTRATE AND ENJOY their gifts daily. Well done, Genius Corps at Apple! I'm eternally grateful!